How do you celebrate the end of the school year? Are you always collecting new ideas?
I’ve tried many different ideas over the last 20+ years, and today I’m sharing some of my favorite and most successful ideas.

END OF YEAR MEMORY SHIRTS
Students bring an older t-shirt to take part in this activity. (I usually grab a few extras at the dollar store for students who forget.) Slide some cardboard inside the shirts and ask students to write their name using Sharpies or [Read More…]

When introducing a new topic of learning, especially in math, I notice the anxiety levels in some students rise significantly. The more anxious students in my class begin to fidget and look uncomfortable when they see something unfamiliar because it falls outside of their comfort zone for known success.

These students are afraid to try and fail; since school is all about introducing new concepts and embracing the learning process, this is quite a problem. Here are some strategies I use in [Read More…]

Most teachers I know use brain breaks of some sort.
There is a lot of great research behind the idea of taking a few minutes out of your work block to refresh and move, before starting back again.

To me, brain breaks are like resetting your computer so it’s much more efficient when starting up again on the next task!
There’s a lot of fascinating research around how movement affects student learning.